March 1980: Smiling happily, Robert Mugabe, Rhodesian President Designate and his Ghanaian wife, Sally, hold hands in the rose garden of their Salisbury bungalow, Zimbabwe, during a brief interlude between continuous business visits as Mugabe worked at forming a Government following his party's landslide electoral victory

March 1996: Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe talks at a news conference in Pretoria, South Africa. Mugabe flew to Johannesburg, to meet President Nelson mandela, right, on regional issues, after casting his vote in Harare to extend his 16-year rule. Mugabe denied he ran a dictatorship

April 2008: A Zimbabwean holds a newly issued fifty million dollar note at a street traders stand in the capital Harare. The country is suffering a severe economic and political crisis with official inflation figures at over 100,000 per cent. The new note is worth the equivalent of three loaves of bread

May 2008: Opposition party MDC supporters from the rural south of the country show their broken limbs from an assault in the capital Harare. There is a massive campaign of violence against opposition supporters following the disputed election held in March

June 2008: Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe is sworn in for a sixth term in office in Harare, after being declared the winner of a one-man election. The 84-year-old was declared the overwhelming winner of a presidential election run-off which was boycotted by opposition leader and first-round winner Morgan Tsvangirai

September 2008: Zimbabwean MDC breakaway faction leader Arthur Mutambara, Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, opposition's leader Morgan Tsvangirai and South African Thabo Mbeki pose after signing the power-sharing accord in Harare. Mbeki said the region and Africa had to extend a helping hand to Zimbabwe and that getting seeds, fertiliser and fuel to the country was a matter of urgency

November 2008: Tendai Mutevera looks for food in a birds nest in Doma, Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe's economy is in crisis, and a political deadlock has left the nation without a functioning government since disputed elections in March

November 2008: A man pushes his relative in a wheelbarrow to a cholera polyclinic, where victims of cholera are being treated in Harare, Zimbabwe.The nationwide outbreak, caused by a breakdown in basic water and sanitation services, has infected more than 6,000 people

February 2009: Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, left, head of the Movement for Democratic Change is sworn in by President Robert Mugabe at the State House in Harare. His swearing-in will cap nearly a year of turmoil that began in March 2008, when Tsvangirai won a first-round presidential vote that was greeted with nationwide political violence, mostly against his supporters

October 2011: The Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams meets with Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe at the State House in Harare, Zimbabwe, . The Anglican Church in Zimbabwe has been divided since breakaway Bishop Nolbert Kunonga's excommunication in 2007. He has taken over the main cathedral, schools and the church's bank accounts. The Archbishop and Mugabe are expected to discuss an end to the disruptions